“Dra-dragon.” He wasn’t prone to stuttering, but he was having an awful time forming words at the moment.
“Yes. Sorry. I should have warned you. Paragon is a dragon kingdom. That was my Aunt Harlow. She shifts to look like you or me. You just caught her giving her whelps a flying lesson.”
His mouth formed into an o, but no sound came out. Eventually pure curiosity overrode his paralyzing fear, and one foot in front of the other, he strode onto the balcony again. For a few minutes he soaked it all in, using his analytical mind to suspend the rising terror in his chest and simply observe. This was no abduction by a Russian oligarch’s daughter in cosplay. Charlotte wasn’t lying. A different world lay before him, waiting to be discovered. He had no idea how this was all possible, but it was. Liam was on another planet.
Although terror was evident in every strained beat of his heart, Liam began to feel something else as he braced himself on the railing. A rush of excitement barreled through him, the same unparalleled intellectual delight he’d first experienced when he learned about dinosaurs as a boy, or during his first chemistry experiment. Sheer wonder trumped every other thought and reaction. Were the elements the same here? Was he the first human to ever visit Paragon? He could breathe the air—that was something. What would he find if he looked at the soil under a microscope? What kind of creature was this angel and the dragons she called family?
Everything about this situation frightened him. Everything about it excited him too. Heart thumping in his chest, he wondered if this was how Neil Armstrong felt before his first steps on the moon.
“Would you like me to take you back now?” Charlotte said from behind him, her wings drooping sadly in conjunction with the corners of her mouth. “I think I’m rested enough. I can do it.”
“First tell me why you brought me here?” he said gruffly. He hadn’t meant for the words to come out as harsh as they had, but he was not a man given to gentle speech.
She jolted at his tone. “As I explained before, I made a mistake. I was told that Saint Nick would be at Earth’s North Pole, wearing a red suit. I thought you were him. I asked you if you would help me and you said yes, and so I brought you here, thinking you were him. I had no idea he was fictional.”
He grunted disapprovingly. “I followed your explanation. What I want to know is what kind of help did you want from Santa?”
Heaving a heavy sigh, she said, “I need to throw a Christmas, and I don’t know how to do it.”
He squinted at her incredulously. Had he heard her correctly? “Throw… a… Christmas?”
“My aunt Avery is going through a hard time right now. She’s originally from Earth and mentioned wanting to be home for Christmas, but the, uh, procedure she’s having means she’s going to miss it. I want to surprise her with a Christmas here. I want a party waiting for her when she returns from her trip.”
Liam’s curious mind didn’t know where to start with all the questions he had following that explanation. If her aunt was from Earth, she must be human. How was Charlotte an angel? And where was Paragon in the universe? How had they traveled here?
All his thoughts narrowed to a single truth. He had a responsibility—no, a duty—to the scientific community to learn more about this strange and fascinating place. “I may not be Santa Claus, but I can help you with your Christmas party.” After all, he’d celebrated Christmas every year of his life. Sure, he hadn’t actually ever organized a holiday—his mom had always taken care of that—but how hard could it be?
“You can?”
“I’m from Earth. I know all about Christmas.” He rested his hands on his hips, his gaze drifting to the volcanic rock under the balcony. Interesting.
“But, I mean, will you? You sounded angry about the situation a moment ago.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t want you to think you don’t have a choice. It was a simple misunderstanding.”
He stormed toward her, making full use of his superior height. He needed to understand her position in this world. Was she military? A scientist? “Who are you here?”
Her gaze flicked down to her hands like a chastised child. Definitely not military. “You mean what is my title?” When he nodded, she said, “I am the princess of Paragon.”
Hmm. Political then. “Well, Princess, you abducted me from my work. I bear part of the responsibility for that because I did agree to help you, only I assumed the help you needed would take place on my world. But now that I’m here, I think we can come to an agreement. First tell me the truth about how we got here.”
“We, uh…” She straightened, and when she spoke again, her voice was terse. “As I said earlier, I can dimension walk. I leaped between worlds and brought you back with me.”
“And you say you can return me when we are through.”
“I can, but…” She hesitated. “You should know that time flows unevenly between here and there and I can only control when I land to a certain degree.”
He blinked against a brewing headache. “Did you just say that time here flows at a different rate than Earth?”
She nodded. “Like two rivers running parallel to each other, each flowing at a different rate of speed. I can jump between one and the other, and with my magic, I can navigate to the same spot I left. But the longer you stay here, the harder it will be for you to adjust to the time shift. You might live a week here and have to relive that same week on Earth. It’s disorienting to some.”
He thought about that for a second. If she was lying and couldn’t time travel—Jesus, was he even considering the idea that she could?—Noah would be long gone. Oh, he’d have searched for him and upon not finding his body would have assumed he’d slipped through the ice or met another untimely end. If she returned him to the place he left, he might be stuck there without a crew and no way off the ice. “Later, when you return me, if there’s a problem, can you transport me to my home in Chicago rather than the North Pole?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh yes. I have an aunt and uncle who live in Chicago. My aunt is head of the vampire coven there.”
Liam leaned harder against the chair behind him. “Vampire coven?”
“Oh, I forgot vampires aren’t known to all humans, are they? Let’s just say I can easily return you to Chicago and I have help there if we run into any issues with our jump. I’ve never actually been there, but it shouldn’t be difficult.”
Charlotte took a step toward him, that time-stopping smile returning to her face. A flutter of excitement started in his stomach, and he told himself it was about this new adventure and not attraction to this woman… this creature. He repeated the notion to himself as his gaze lingered on her mouth.
